Formerly CourtTv’s now TrueTv original show “Forensic Files” is probably one of the more interesting and educational reality shows. It is part reality show because unlike most reality shows this one is actually true, the cases are true, the victims are real, the villains are real and the verdicts are real.

This is the real life Criminal Investigation unit not that CBS show. You always learn something new in this show. You learn how the real life forensics work and the technology they use. You learn terms such as the lensometer (used to measure lens), spectograph, prc technology (used to magnify dna), microtremors and other neat science terms. Of course last but not least what’s really shaped the criminology nowadays is the advent of DNA leading investigators to close “cold cases” and new ones sometimes even the DNA found helps innocent people out of jail. Such the case was the episode about a girl named Vickie Lyons, scarred for life by a hit and run driver. The police were incompetent, arrested the wrong man and even with forensic evidence still refused to release the wrong man. Eventually the right man was found.

In other cases like “Bad Blood” a woman swears for over seven years that she was raped by a well known doctor. Everyone thought she was crazy until it was found out that the doctor himself manipulated the DNA evidence.

I tell you then this show has everything. You learn how investigators and how the forensic team work. There’s a wide variety of cases which makes the show very unpredictable everything from murder, to hit and run, to dirt cops, to deranged mothers and fathers.. Even by TV standards it’s still up to the level of any show on TV today.